ESPERIA V1.2 - New Game Mode (Randomized) & New UI

Version 1.2 is here!

Be ready because there are a lot of things to cover! For old players, please stick to the end as the last part might be important for you!

New Difficulty mode - Randomized

A new difficulty mode has been introduced, if you play a new game in this difficulty, all the enemies will have a random class, equipment and skills (except for key characters). This means you can face a dragon while trying to rout some bandits, or discover that the head of the group of stealthy assassin suddenly became an armored knight with the Seduction skill.

This mode, by definition, isn't really balanced, but I find it quite fun to play! It's probably a good option if you want to replay the game (or who knows, even stream it!).

If it's well received, we may add a mode randomizing the player units as well in the future.

UI and Graphic changes

New Unit Menu and Deploy menu -The old menu that was taking the entire screen has been replaced by a menu displayed on the two sides of the screen. It's more beautiful, and more practical. Usable weapons and the bonus from relationships are also all visible in the menu, you don't need to switch pages to see them. -These changes apply to deploy menu as well, the menu now includes Battle stats and Relations (absent before) -Character portraits have been replaced by full illustrations on the menus.

New Battle preview -We have a new battle preview that is displayed on the side of the screen to free the map. It also includes skills and current states.

New character arts -New art for Governor Melphis and the basic Mediana/Rebel Soldiers. They have been implemented in the story. -New 'shadow' arts have been assigned to all units on the map, to fill the new menus.

Map changes -The famous black bars have been replaced by a background. I hope you like it. -Unit menu and terrain information is now fixed outside of the map. -Units area of attack don't go outside of the battle window anymore.

Gameplay changes

Weapon ranks -The weapon rank system has been removed. This was a hard choice, but I noticed the weapon rank system was slowing down the game a bit (by roughly half a second on enemy phase, usually not noticable but visible on map with high number of enemies) and it also had a very small impact on the gameplay, actually. The use of powerful item is already controlled by durability, and rare/high rank equipment are introduced gradually as the story progresses anyway so there is no real need to add another layer of control here. It could also be a bit frustrating with some unit starting at low rank like Sara with E-rank in magic or Elphin with E-rank in charms. The colors on weapon icon are still there, as they are a good way to judge the rarity/power of a weapon. Items that boost weapon ranks are not sold anymore, if you have one already, it has been changed to an item that gives you a skill linked to that weapon type instead.

Necromancy -Nina's Necromancy skill has been reworked, it works on all maps now, and you can choose where you deploy the skeleton around her.

Steal -Objects stolen by the enemies can now be taken back by defeating them -Artifacts cannot be stolen anymore! This allowed for a big gold exploit where you could steal all the artifacts the enemies had and sell them. -A new command « Steal Gold » has been introduced for Marie. She needs to be equipped with the Steal skill and it can be used two times per map. Also, the player gets gold in the base on Chapter 10 and 17 now, and initial amount has been increased by 500. -Steal is not dependent on speed anymore (if a thief was faster than Marie he could steal an object and she was unable to take it back, for instance. Now she can).

Other fixes -Corrected performance issues in Ch11-11x and 18. Chapter 11 was especially bad, I'm surprised no one reported it. It took over 3 seconds to load enemy's movements (partly because of weapon ranks, the neutral faction, the sheer number of enemies and calculating enemy's AoE magic). It's a bit over 1 second now. -Artifacts are now different from items, that means the 'Silence' state (from the 'Mutism' orb magic) will only prevents magic and artifacts use (it prevented item use before). -A bug where two « Artifacts » command appear has been solved.

As always if you see any bug or weird behaviour from the game, don't hesitate to post it in the community! I would be glad if you can leave a review on the store too! The demo will be updated later today to match all these changes.

With best witches,

PS: FOR OLD PLAYERS (before June): If you have a save that was done inside of a map (ex: at turn 10, turn 5 etc...) the map is already loaded with old parameters. This means that the new UI cannot be put outside of map boundaries during this chapter. Since this major update change the Unit menu, you will be unable to see detailed battle stats and items when you right click on a unit on said map (they're still accessible via item menu, however. Battle preview is fine, too). It only last during this map, but it can be inconvenient, so if you want, you have the possibility to switch to the old UI by using what Steam call a game branch, to finish the chapter, and then come back to the main branch. I will put an article in the community to explain this, you can then switch back to the new version whenever you want by changing branch again. This concerns all the saves done during a map prior to May 31st. Normal saves at the base, end of chapters or deploy menu are not concerned.